​I sat outside Dad’s vacant house and watchedlungfuls of schwag blur the straggly leafy sprawlof a forest mending from a clear cut a few years back--a next chapter scrawled in pulpy cursive--when a goat moseyed up to sneakers I’d left on the grass.

“What the hell is a goat doing here?” I asked,but no one was around to answer.I wondered: did the question really materialize,bloom from synapse to lips like ape unfurling from crouchin nude time-lapse into modern Man?Or did it merely echo inside my skull, an urgencyalmost capable of begetting thought bubbles?

The goat turned its head; its pupils poked with human squintthrough branches tangled like a map-maker’swaste-basket. At that moment, I knew I’d asked the question.I avoided eye contact, afraid it would realize I thought it was crazy.

“I didn’t actually intend for you to answer,” I explained.The goat lowered its head and began to gnawthe soles of my shoes, its beard dragging the ground.The bell around its neck jangled like a tambourine,the lone sound in the reenacted forest.